Behind bars, the turf is golden
If the cells were condos, they would command big dollars.
Each of the 698 prisoners in the Suffolk County Jail has a single or double room with a view, and the vistas showcase the best of Boston: the Harbor and Charles River, the new Nashua Street Park, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge. Inmates with this remarkable picture window on Boston's progress must deal with the ever-present reality of being shut out of the city's gold coast.
The jail on Nashua Street occupies a priceless 2.1 acres of downtown real estate in the vortex of the nearly completed Big Dig, at the edge of the burgeoning West End, and on the lip of the channel connecting the Charles River and Boston Harbor. Around the jail, the area will soon swirl with more changes, as construction nibbles at the edges.
Soon, a 37-story tower, the mixed-use Nashua Street Residences, which is being developed by Delaware North, owners of the FleetCenter, will rise above the arena's loading ramp. The Boston Redevelopment Authority is in the final stages of approving the project. Depending on their location in the new tower, paying customers who buy into the 375 residences might have scenery less impressive than the occupants of the jail down the street. And
Other projects are on the drawing boards: Massachusetts General Hospital owns the land adjoining the jail, which was the site of the old Registry of Motor Vehicles. MGH has yet to announce its plans for the parcel. At Lovejoy Wharf, a short distance from the jail on the waterway, there is a plan for $85 million to be spent on 260 residences, retail stores, office space, and a parking garage. The BRA is currently taking public comment on the proposal. Development of 1 million square feet at Bulfinch Triangle will also bring a new stream of people and businesses into the area. Bids are out. Meanwhile, the stunning Nashua Street Park, directly in front of the jail, is an $8 million, 2.5-acre stretch of greenery with a misting fountain, riverbank terraces, and fiber-optic lighting. The green space was dedicated last September and will be fully operational this spring.
The prison will have hundreds of new neighbors freely seeking the urban good life. And while it might be odd to consider the Big House as a community partner, such is the unique location and situation of the Suffolk County Jail.
''I probably have the only waterfront jail in the country with a park right across the street," says Andrea Cabral, the Suffolk sheriff, who presides over the jail as well as the Suffolk County House of Correction at South Bay, a medium-security facility for those convicted of crimes.
Yet as inmates gaze out from barred windows at people driving and walking, jogging and biking past Boston's distinct landmarks, they are served with constant reminders of the freedom lost when steel doors closed behind them. Taxpayers spend an estimated $33,000 per prisoner to support them, but these pretrial detainees pay a steeper price. Incarcerated women and men dress in color-coded jumpsuits denoting their health and behavior. (Bright orange, for instance, indicates ''special management.") Men spend an average of 14 months in the jail; women, eight months. They live on different wings in sparse single or double cubicles of polished concrete and steel, arranged by the severity of their alleged crimes. Guards can observe their every move on video monitors. Outdoor activity is confined to elevated cages. Inmates can pace or play basketball but their feet never touch the earth.
For those who live or work in the neighborhood, or just pass by, the jail and its residents recede into the background. The brick bastion looks like a hotel, an apartment building, or a medical center until it looms up and takes a viewer by surprise. This can happen driving by at night and stopping at the traffic light in front of the building, gazing up to see, perhaps, a prisoner dressed in fluorescent orange violently rocking back and forth on an upper bunk. Other inmates appear as shadows moving behind vertical steel bars that look like chi-chi window treatments.
The Suffolk County Jail, which opened in 1991 to replace the old Charles Street Jail, shelters those who have been arrested and await trial: murderers, rapists, arsonists, child molesters, scammers, and those who will eventually be found innocent by juries. ''We have everybody from shoplifters to murderers, which is why it's a maximum-security facility," says Cabral.
Public fear can creep in when inmates' presence seeps over the walls and spills out onto the streets and sidewalks. Visitors to the jail often congregate outside, giving shout-outs or sending signals after visiting hours.
While deputy sheriffs clear the walkways of loiterers, they are watchful for any ''inappropriate" or ''unlawful" communiqués.
''As more residential housing goes up and more and more people use the park, we're going to be a lot more vigilant," promises Cabral. ''And there are going to be people from businesses and MGH taking their lunch in the new park, and it's a very nice area. So we fully recognize, and actually welcome, the opportunity to be a neighborhood and community partner."
Prisoners in cells on the side of the jail facing Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, approximately 30 yards away, have forged unlikely alliances with patients in wheelchairs through a complicated sign language of hand and arm gestures through the steel blinds.
Cabral is keenly aware her city jail is different. She says the facility's prime location came up as an issue when she was running for office last year. ''Someone once asked me during the campaign about why there would be a jail with a great view of the city. And I don't see it that way. [Prisoners] do look over a park. They look over Storrow Drive. They see people living their lives. But they know it's time they're never going to get back in their lives."
When Cabral met with the West End Civic Association during her 2004 campaign for sheriff, she discovered neighborhood concerns did not focus on possible escapes, but on noise intrusions.
''People are transported there, transported to court, and when they are released, they hightail away as quickly as possible," says the sheriff. ''I think [the neighbors] were more concerned about human congestion, visitors standing in certain areas and so on and so forth."
Cabral cites the jail's architecturally generic design as an asset in the community.
''It was good planning," she says. ''It does not stick out as a jail. It certainly doesn't look like the old Charles Street Jail, which had that nice Puritan look to it." (The Charles Street Jail is being redeveloped as a luxury hotel.) ''I'm grateful for that because we're in an urban setting and people and institutions and agencies do live side by side. And I'm grateful for the fact its facade does blend into the neighborhood. So it's not an eyesore. It makes a huge difference. If it had an overly institutional look, I think people would be even more concerned."
For Cabral, the view from the outside in is also instructive.
''For most people who pass by, jail is not even a remote possibility in their lives, because the vast majority of people will never see the inside of a police station, let alone a jail cell. But for others who notice the person sitting on the bed rocking back and forth, they could make some good choices so they're never going to be the person rocking on the bed that other people watch as they go by."
The rock on Nashua Street stands in the intersection of regret, fascination, and opportunity in a neighborhood rocking with possibilities.
E-mail Monica Collins at mcollins@globe.com. 
